Recently, my family told me they feel like I treat other people better than I do them. My first reaction was defensive. Of course, I act “nicer” around colleagues or strangers. With family, I don’t need to self-censor or perform. And honestly, it doesn’t feel unusual; most people probably do this to some extent. But once I sat with it, I started wondering whether that’s actually true for everyone, and if it is, why we so often fail to show up as our best selves at home.
At home, I notice my irritation bubbling up over small things, like having to repeat myself or when my wife doesn’t know something I think she should. The kind of thing I would never let show if a colleague did it. I’d smile, let it go, and find a tactful way around it. But at home, my tone becomes sharp, the annoyance shows on my face, and it hurts the people I want to hurt the least. It’s not planned or conscious, and I always regret it, but it still happens.
Closeness makes it easy to say things we would never say to anyone else. Maybe I hurt the people closest to me because I don’t have my public face on, and my words come out rougher than they need to. Maybe it’s just volume. More time together means more chances to irritate each other. But that doesn’t feel like the whole story. It feels like something gets used up out there, being who I think I need to be in the outside world, and by the time I’m with my family, I don’t want to have to be careful anymore.
Reading some of Erving Goffman’s work helped me make sense of that. He wrote about how much of social life is performance, how we’re constantly adjusting ourselves to fit the situation we’re in. Seen that way, it isn’t surprising that we’re more careful, measured, and restrained in public than we are at home. That level of attention takes energy, even if we don’t notice it in the moment. And when that energy runs out, our ability to stay patient and measured goes with it. What’s left shows up most clearly at home, in shorter patience, sharper words, and a lower tolerance for the people who are closest to us.
The irony is hard to ignore. We give our best selves to people who matter less in the long run, and the people who matter most get whatever’s left over. That feels backwards. But swinging too far in the other direction, treating colleagues or strangers worse just to preserve more energy for family, doesn’t feel right either. I’m still trying to understand what it means to give the people closest to me more than whatever happens to be left, and whether there’s a reasonable balance between letting my inner asshole out and putting on an act at home. Finding it, and keeping it, doesn’t seem easy.